Mary F. Williamson has retired as Fine Arts Bibliographer and Adjunct Faculty in Art History at York University. She has written about 19th century Canadian wood engravers, book and periodical illustration, the literature of Canadian art and architecture, and cookery of the 19th and early 20th century. Most recently her co-edited, Just a larger family: letters of Marie Williamson from the Canadian home front, 1940-1944 (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011) won the 2012 Heritage Toronto Award of Excellence in the books category.
Mary has inherited a multitude of Peterkin photograph albums and individual family photographs as well as the manuscript of her great-grandfather Charles Robert Peterkin’s “Recollections.” Her mother’s written memories of her grandfather have served as an invaluable asset in the writing of the Epilogue for A Boyhood Journey: Scotland to Canada in 1853.
Recent publications:
2013, co-author with Jenny Rieger of The Grange: first home of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2013.16p.
2011, Just a larger family: letters of Marie Williamson from the Canadian home front, 1940-1944. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011. 378p.
2009 “For wedding déjeuners to recherché repasts: the Webb family bakers, confectioners, caterers and restauranteurs, by appointment to Victorian Toronto,” chapter in The Edible City: Toronto’s Food from Farm to Fork. Toronto: Coach House Press, 2009, 66-71.
Charles Peterkin's Journey 